We just had our International Balloon Festival (really *really* big deal here in Albuquerque) and they'd had a series of little accidents and injuries (dumped some people out when a basket caught on a tent, etc.) so my first reaction was, Oh, no! something truly horrible happened and I hadn't heard.

My second reaction was relief, thank goodness they died somewhere *else*...

The dead ones jumped too early and attained terminal (for them) velocity. The survivors braved the flames a bit longer and thus did not attain lethal velocity as the balloon - even on fire - fell much slower than a person would. When and if they finally did jump, their velocity on impact was much lower.

I could never understand the physics of momentum. For years I pondered why, as depicted in movies, people jumping from trains took a terrible tumble. Seemed to me once you jumped and your feet left the train, you were sideways to the train and it would be like jumping from a stationary platform.

Same thing with the Mythbusters "jumping in a falling elevator" episode. If you could jump at the precise last moment, the elevator would crash but your jump would be an ordinary jump. The problem there is judging the precise moment before the crash, which is quite impossible.

In the case of the balloon, you couldn't just hang off the edge and fall off a falling balloon, you'd have to actually jump upward from the falling balloon at the moment before it crashed, and that's harder done than visualized.

Same thing with the Mythbusters "jumping in a falling elevator" episode. If you could jump at the precise last moment, the elevator would crash but your jump would be an ordinary jump. The problem there is judging the precise moment before the crash, which is quite impossible.

Well, that and the fact that to counteract your momentum you'll have to put the same energy in your jump as you've gained on the way down. So if the elevator started free falling at the tenth floor your jump would have to be such that you would clear the tenth floor if you weren't falling in an elevator.

"Well, that and the fact that to counteract your momentum you'll have to put the same energy in your jump as you've gained on the way down."

even if you did it wouldnt help. You are pushing against something falling just as fast as you are. The only think you are doing is cracking your head against the roof of the elevator. And still falling just as fast as you were before. You just opened a gap between your feet and the elevator floor.